Tuesday 19 November 2013

Barclay Perkins in the late 18th century

There was one thing that always impressed visitors about the Barclay Perkins brewery - its sheer size. For more than a century, that made it one of the must-see sights in London.

"Dined with Mr. Shoemaker, Mr. Coxe, Mr. Phineas Bond, & Mr. Samson a Mercht., at Mr. Barclay's great Brewery in the Borough, which I examined. The Buildings contain near 5 Acres of Ground, Stables with 79 Horses, 2 Copper Boilers of 200 Barrels each brick'd up all round; Vats of 500 — 800 — 1000 & 4 of 1500 Barrels each. All full of Porter. This Brewery and 5 others make up Half of the Porter made in London; one of the 4 largest Vats costs 700 Guineas. They all stand upon Piles clear of the Ground about 4 Feet. They may be about 18 Feet high, of Oak hooped with Iron. He alone pays Excise weekly, in a Year near £40,000 exclusive of the Excize on Malt in the advanced Price of it. The Works are astonishing! so is the Quantity of Malt! The whole annual Market for Porter in the Port of London is about 1200,000 Barrels. 11 Twelfths is the Home Consumption, but 1/12th goes abroad. It will increase. Europe grows fond of Porter & especially Russia. I saw one Floor of 1000 Barrels in the last Fermentation, Yest running at the Bungs. Mr. Barclay assures me upon his Honor no Opium is used, nothing but Malt & Hops & Thames Water. It is an Error that this is the only Water fit for Porter.   Hopps are an opiate."
The diary and selected papers of Chief Justice William Smith, 1784-1793, Vol. I, edited by L.F.S. Upton, 1963-1965, page 220.

Hops aren't an opiate. They're not even an opioid. Weird that the author had to get Mr. Barclay to swear that his beer didn’t contain opium. I’m still to find any real evidence that beer was drugged with opium. Lots of rumours, but no evidence.

Was the total production of Porter 1.2 million barrels? Probably. The 8 biggest Porter brewers were churning out 800-odd thousand barrels in the 1790's:

Output of London's large Porter breweries 1784 - 1793
1784 1785 1786 1787 1788 1789 1790 1791 1792 1793
Barclay Perkins 103,700 100,700 101,600 105,600 112,600 123,900 126,700 121,200 119,500 130,100
Whitbread 126,500 137,800 138,800 146,300 156,000 171,000 175,000 176,000 178,000 184,000
Truman, Hanbury 120,800 111,200 94,800 95,300 82,300 93,900 93,700 89,300 97,500 96,300
Sir W. Calvert Felix Calvert 93,800 100,700 75,200 91,600 81,800 80,500 57,800 81,400 69,400 71,400
John Calvert 117,700 134,800 117,200 131,000 127,000 141,600 144,000 131,300 125,100 108,000
Meux, Reid (Reid and Co) 57,500 57,300 45,700 49,700 48,200 53,300 48,700 68,500 78,500 88,500
Hammond-Gyfford-Shum-Combe -Delafield 108,800 101,400 87,600 90,900 100,100 95,300 100,200 100,700 106,200 101,500
Parsons-Goodwyn-Hoare 62,900 62,000 61,300 66,400 61,600 63,100 60,500 55,600 58,500 74,400
Total 791,700 805,900 722,200 776,800 769,600 822,600 806,600 824,000 832,700 854,200
Source:
“The Brewing Industry in England 1700-1830”, Peter Mathias, 1959, p 551-552

"Europe grows fond of Porter". What a wonderful phrase. But one I doubt that I'll ever be able to use.

3 comments:

Bryan the BeerViking said...

Oh, I dunno - you can find multiple Porters in pretty much every country in Europe now, and the number is waxing, not waning. Yes, I'd say Europe grows fond of Porter.

Alan said...

Perhaps it was not the chemical formulation of opium but the doping effect. See this 1830's discussion of opium: http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM183705100161403 I forget when that visit to Barclays occured.

Hops do have a dippy effect as a herb. Deep dreams, that sort of thing. Hence "hop head".

Oblivious said...

"Hops aren't an opiate. They're not even an opioid. "

I wonder is it anything to do with the hop alpha acid gather on the petals of the hop flowers. Is not to dissimilar to how the alkaloid latex, "poppy tears" oozes from the plant head for harvesting. Something that might be visual similar